Wednesday 2nd April 2008

There has been an announcement today that another home loan provider in Australia is no longer offering residential mortgages.

Australian Broker news has published the following article.

Maxis exits lending space
Wednesday, 2 April 2008

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Brokers will now have one less choice to offer their customers after Maxis Loans became the latest casualty of the global liquidity crisis. The lender made the decision to cease originating home loans as of the start of the month.

"This decision was reached after a long-term strategic review of the business and its ongoing profitability," general manager Don Marsh said. "The changes to the global funding market also continue to undermine the profitability of Maxis Loans, the impact of which can no longer be absorbed by the business."

Maxis Loans will continue to "honour existing commission payments" and serve existing customers. However, it has stopped accepting applications for new business or top-ups for existing customers.

The move comes as a major blow as Maxis used the broker channel to originate "almost 100%" of its home loan portfolio.

The Melbourne-based lender hopes to absorb its entire staff within the wider business group and expects to keep redundancies to a minimum. Marsh said Maxis would continue to offer a full banking service and it was only the home loans section that was ceasing.

Earlier this month Macquarie Mortages announced they were exiting the home loan market.